To Love A Man
by Kagomaru
Summary: It's not always easy to love someone, but sometimes it's all you have left.


Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto or any of its characters, that right is reserved for Masashi Kishimoto.

**To love a man**

It was as she lay in the red soaked field that she realized that she would never see him again.

Her death was closing in on her with every drop of blood that was quickly draining from her body and she would never even be able to tell him good-bye. She had loved him for so long she didn't even remember what it felt like to love someone else…

For three months they had shared a bed and their lives, and she had been so intensely happy that any other happy days before or since seemed dim in comparison. His ever rare smiles were her sunshine, his sickly sweet kisses the only thing that could slake her thirst; but he had never felt the same.

He had loved her as no one else ever had, but he had never loved her the way she had loved him. He had wanted to, had tried to, but in the end he hadn't been able to.

He had told her good-bye on a beautiful spring evening that before that moment she had never wanted to end. She had noticed things were off, that he didn't seem to smile as often or touch her so readily, but that day had been different. He had smiled and laughed, joked and held her to him; and then he had suddenly changed.

"This isn't working."

He said it like their relationship was a broken toy, sadly, but with a finality that spoke of a decision that could never be changed. She had begged and cried and asked him why, but he had had no satisfactory answers.

They had tried to be friends, despite the lines getting blurred every time she once again woke up from his bed, but even that had crumbled a year later. They had become so close, in some ways closer than before, and when she had asked him for a second chance she somehow hadn't expected his solid refusal. It had broken her, and in turn she had broken ties with him.

It hadn't been until three years later that she had finally felt whole enough to break the silence and renew a friendship she had missed almost as much as her heart.

It had almost killed her to be his confidant about his developing love for another woman, a woman engaged to one of his close friends… but she had survived, and they had become closer. Too close. Every day now she found herself wishing to ask him, just one last time, if they could try again…

But it was too late now.

Sakura closed her eyes as the warmth left her body more quickly with every breath. She held the image of him before her eyes and imagined what could have happened if she hadn't been too afraid to say the words that had been trying desperately to escape her heart since the last time he had told her that she was an important person in his life, that it would be impossible to ever forget her.

No, it was better that she hadn't. Even then she had known what he had meant. She was important in the same way that Naruto was important, as a comrade, as a friend, as family. It wasn't enough, it would never be enough; but he couldn't give her any more. He _wouldn't_.

Breathing became difficult as black seeped into the edges of her vision, but none of that mattered anymore. She could see the image of his smiling face before her eyes, could feel the soft caress of his fingers running through her hair, could feel his love.

It was a memory, a perfect memory of a perfect morning that she could never have again, but it was enough. She finally stopped fighting the death of her body, stopped trying to wait for help. She was dying and the only thing she would be able to take with her was this single moment of her life, but it was enough; more than enough. She let go.

Let go of the physical pain, the emotional heart-break, the sense of responsibility… she let go of everything but the image of that morning in his bed when the world had seemed infinite and their love a bottomless pool of warmth. She could live within that moment for an eternity and never ask for more because she knew there never would be more; that he would never love her that way again. And then she let that go too.

She was floating in a pool of warmth that felt oddly like the embrace of his arms as her world slipped away; memories from her childhood washing over her. Memories of parents who had loved her without ever understanding the extent of her pain and despite her building of barriers between them. Of loving a boy who would die and be reborn as her enemy. Of a boy with sunshine hair and a never-ending smile. Of a man who would read hot-pink porn in front of his students.

Of a man holding her as she cried over the loss of a young life she had been unable to save.

Of a man who kissed her so passionately she couldn't breathe for fear he would stop.

Of a man who made love to her with the quiet intensity of a man unwilling to give anything but perfection.

Of a man who made her smile even when her world was falling apart.

Of a man who broke her heart so easily it might as well have been made of glass.

Of a man who begged her not to cry.

Of a man who promised her she would find love again even while telling her that he never could.

Of a man who had smiled when she came to him in friendship, making the years they had been apart feel like nothing.

Of a man who had brushed the hair from her face and promised her he would always be there for her.

Of a man who had waited thirty minutes by the front gates just to say good-bye before she left.

Of mismatched eyes staring into her own as if she were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

_Kakashi… Kakashi… Kakashi…_

His name reverberated through her head, his perfect smile the only thing she could see.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

I have no idea if this story is done or not. It needed to be written and so I wrote it, for now it is finished, but if I get inspired I might continue it. Tell me what you think?


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